Why Content Marketing Works for “Boring” Businesses

Jay is a digital marketer and producer whose creative and technical skills have developed digital brand strategies and sales campaigns using a range of complex internet applications from stand-alone websites through to Facebook API integrations.

It may surprise you to learn the number of businesses in the “not so fun” category pulling off content marketing. You’ll even find some doing it with flair.

What every marketer should know is there is always chatter in an industry. Both on and offline the conversation is flowing, and you’re either listening or not.

It’s just a matter of looking at your business a little differently. Looking at it, like the gun marketer you know you can be.

The first step is a mental shift

It’s simple. There’s no such thing as a boring business. If people are buying from you, they’re showing interest in some facet of what you do.

Next, is to adopt the mentality of an inbound marketer. If you’re reading this blog, then you understand how effective content marketing can be.

Traffic, cold, warm and hot leads, and exposure are all at your beck and call. Thinking outside your self-imposed box is the starting point.

Try not to talk about the product

Time and time again we implore you to discuss benefits instead of features.

What that means is less:

“The system boasts 8gb of RAM and a 1Tb SSD hard drive. Rated at a whopping 3.6 GHZ, the processor is the best on the market…”

And more:

“With 8Gb of RAM your new PC will handle Photoshop, browsing the web and streaming Spotify, at the same time with ease. Its Solid State Hard drive means your files are available in an instant. Unlike traditional hard drives, information on SSDs doesn’t need to load from a spinning disk. You can expect performance like that which your smartphone delivers.”

Ok, a computer store is an easy example but you can deploy this tactic in almost every industry.

Visual content is your friend

If your business revolves around any form of stats, you can turn them into infographics.

Think weather patterns, sales forecasts, anything you can collate to show a trend people love. If you’re struggling with a topic or need a little more data to present something sound, head to Statista to bolster your piece.

Another fantastic way for not-so-fun industries to engage audiences is through video.

Tutorials, walkthroughs and demonstrations all yield results.

Here is a video tutorial teaching people about Sub Arc Welding. To all those in the welding industry, this video has had over 2.5 million views. (Hint-hint, nudge-nudge).

The welding example works in many ways. As a male, I am interested in seeing the inner workings of industries I know nothing of. I want to see a mechanic’s multi-thousand-dollar toolkit. I want to see how to pull apart my vacuum cleaner and fix it, just in case I ever need to.

Don’t get me started on female-specific services. Some make-up artists are now internet celebrities just for teaching ladies make-up techniques.

No matter what business you’re in, it can work for you

The aim is to generate ideas around your businesses that people will find interesting. I don’t need to get excited about the welding video mentioned above, but if I’m interested, I’ll probably hang around.

If you’re providing honest, reliable information that is easy to digest and readily available, you’ll likely have me as an interested onlooker.

From there, winning me to your cause might only be an email sequence sending me to a landing page away.

And you’ve got me. A new customer dragged in through the power of content marketing.

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